


Bury Me Six Feet in Snow

by Jam (ViolentHamster)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 15:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29544582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ViolentHamster/pseuds/Jam
Summary: be the change you want to see in the world, I guess- Michael Shelley, fresh out of high school, is employed as an archival assistant at the Magnus Institute, his only friend a Tory-coded pothead named Elias. But as their relationship grows, so does their suspicion and the two soon realise that there is more going on than they could have ever anticipated.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard/Michael Shelley
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey everyone! I guess this is pretty self indulgent and also I literally havent written anything since 2017 so please dont be mean if the writing is kinda shitty.

The institute was dizzyingly tall, and the almost reverential hush inside did little to calm Michael's nerves. In jeans and a t-shirt, he felt horribly under dressed as who he presumed to be researchers bustled around him silently, in that way you can be when you know exactly what you are doing.  
The ground floor of the institute was primarily taken up by strange and curious artefacts, displayed with little notecards detailing their sometimes spooky, sometimes gory, sometimes disappointingly mundane origins. At the far end of the foyer, stairs led up to the second floor marked 'books and research'. From what Michael had gathered from a quick read of the pamphlet handed to him at the door, the first two floors of the institute were open to the public as a museum and research centre of sorts. However, he was not here for either of those things.  
A man sat at a desk next to where Michael was standing cleared his throat. 'Is everything okay?' he asked, his eyes flicking to the queue of people building up behind the boy.  
'Oh! Oh yes, I'm here for the interview? There was an ad in the paper for the position of archival assistant,' Michael babbled, 'and it said to come here at midday on the 12th? Is that right?'  
The man nodded. 'yeah, if you go though there,' he pointed to a nondescript looking door entitled 'PRIVATE- ARCHIVAL STAFF ONLY' 'and down the stairs you'll be in the archives. First door on the right is Gertrude, she's the head Archivist and the one who will be interviewing you.'  
Michael nodded and hurried over to the door, his palms so slick with sweat he could hardly turn the handle.  
He remembered little of the interview. Gertrude was a stern-looking woman in her mid-fifties. She had apologised, saying that 'usually our big boss, Mr Wright would do the interviews, but he was busy and seeing as Michael was the only applicant, it was less an interview, per se, and more of a welcome.'  
Strange, Michael thought as he hurried home, that in such a big city as London, he was the only person to apply for such an attractive sounding job. But his doubts were quickly sidelined by Gertrude's cold smile and request for him to start Thursday. He wondered what he could've said that would have made her seem so satisfied. All he could remember was her question about paranormal events- had he ever experienced any, and if so, what were they? In an attempt to please her, Michael had made up some story of an old woman who he couldve sworn he saw after all the lights were out. He couldn't tell her the truth, well, not yet at least. Not when even he didn't know what really happened to Ryan.  
Pulling his scarf tighter around his neck, he frowned to himself. He felt as though he was being watched.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for the love on the first chapter! I hope yall enjoy this one too :00

Michael was suddenly hit with a wave of panic as he entered the enormous foyer for the second time in his life. What was he really doing here? After the excitement of getting the job had worn off, he had started to think harder about why, exactly, he had been the only candidate. Now he came to think of it, where had he even seen the advertisement? as irrational as it was, Michael started to fear that he had dreamed the entire encounter.

It was then that a woman appeared next to him. 'Michael Shelby, is it? our newest assistant?'   
He turned to her and relief washed through him as he realised it was Gertrude, who had interviewed him a few days ago.  
'oh, its actually Shelley. Sorry.' he added nervously, wishing he hadn't corrected the woman. she simply nodded and carried on walking.  
'I trust you are familiar with what we do in the archives, yes?'  
'of course!' Michael lied through his teeth. Why hadn't she brought that up in the interview? as far as he could remember there had been no talk of work experience on the application, and he had said that he was fresh out of high school- were they expecting him to be well-versed in archival assisting? 

As they walked down the flight of stairs into the archives, Gertrude gave him a rundown of his coworkers.   
'I only take on a few assistants down here, I like to keep it peaceful. We have the capacity for about ten but I like to keep the number around five- an empty office or two can prove rather useful sometimes. Now, Emma has been here the longest so I'm sure you'll meet her soon enough. Mary and Eric are around here somewhere as well- they've both been here a few years now. Elias is the newest addition- apart from you, of course- and hes a similar age... 19, I think? I'm hoping he'll show you around a bit.' As they turned a corner, now able to look down the short corridor that made up the archive offices, Michael saw someone sitting on the bottom stair. It was a boy his age, with shaggy dark hair, wearing a stained white button-up and jeans. He looked at Michael, who, for fear of being dress-coded, had shown up on his first day in his best suit, and gave him a look resembling something between confusion and disgust. 

'Ah! Elias. Just who I was looking for. Pick that up, please-' She nodded at what Michael assumed to be a joint that, in his panic at seeing the two of them, Elias had dropped on the carpet. 'we wouldnt want the archives burning down, now, would we?'   
Elias rolled his eyes before picking it up and nodding at Michael. 'Who's this? Your prodigal son? A lost puppy?'   
His voice wasn't at all how Michael expected. He was well-spoken, with a slight air of amusement. What was such a posh-sounding kid doing here? Shouldn't he be paying his way to an Oxford degree, or being culturally insensitive overseas? Instead, he was being pushed into an office by Gertrude, slamming the door behind her. 

Michael could only hear parts of their conversation, muffled behind the heavy wood.  
'Elias, please. You might as well do something useful, instead of sitting around all day, smoking and occasionally typing up a statement.'  
'The kid looks like a fucking cherub! All golden curls and round faces. Replace that suit with a fig leaf and he wouldn't be out of place on the roof of the Sistine Chapel.'  
'Elias! Don't use that language with me. He's only six months younger than you, and he at least got his A-Levels.'

The rest of the conversation was completed in hushed tones that he couldn't make out. When they appeared again, Elias gave him a smile that didnt reach his eyes, and stuck out a hand with fingernails bitten to the quick.  
'Elias Bouchard. Pleasure to meet you.'


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's at this point I realise that I basically just included all the characters I wanted to and had forgotten to actually check if it was canon compliant. sorry guys

'So. I'm showing you around.' Elias strode ahead, and Michael had no choice but to hurry after him. 

'There are ten offices here but including you, only five of us work here. Not that we really need anyone else, stuff goes at a snails pace down in the archives. Gertrude has the head archivist's office and Emma uses the one next to hers, though I think Gertrude would prefer it if she didnt. Mary and Eric spend most of their time making out in the archival library- but I didnt tell you that.' He stopped at a door halfway down the corridor on the left. 'through here is the archival library. Its... a library, I guess? Nothing particularly interesting. it's where we keep the original copies of all the statements, even the ones that are disproved. At the moment we're going through and making audio recordings of as many as we can, but Gertrude is... weirdly possessive of the ones she allows me to record. Of course none of them are true, no matter what the statement givers do or don't believe. I don't care, though. It's a job, and if I play my cards right I'm going to be the boss of all this one day.'

Michael raised his eyebrows. So that was why this guy was wasting his time in an archive. He had no doubt Elias would make it to the top- he was obviously rich, and he must have connections if he'd got this job with no A-Levels, as Gertrude had pointed out a few minutes ago. 

Elias gave him a sideways glance. 'So why did you come work here? Got a specific love for the ramblings of schizophrenics, or just needed some cash?'  
Michael shrugged. 'Just needed some cash, I suppose. I just moved here a week ago and living in London is... expensive, not to mention commute. I'm about an hour away by tube.'  
'Jesus, why don't you move closer? I couldn't imagine having to travel so far. I just live around the corner.'  
Did he really have no idea how much it cost to live so close to the centre? Elias seemed nice enough, but he definitely had a harsh reality coming once he stopped relying on daddy's money. 

He sunk down to sit against the wall and motioned for Michael to join him, taking a lighter out of his pocket and relighting the joint he was smoking earlier. He offered it to Michael, who politely declined- Gerturde seemed resigned about Elias's habit, but getting high on his first day seemed a little unprofessional.


	4. Chapter 4

The two teenagers sat in silence for a few minutes, the only sound a gentle tick of a clock that hung above the door. Eventually, it was Michael who broke the quiet.  
'So why did you come work here?'  
'Uh- what?'   
'I mean, you asked me whether I came for the ramblings of schizophrenics or cash. You told me you don't care about this stuff and I don't think you're particularly in need of the money, so why did you choose this job?'  
Elias shifted uncomfortably. 'I already told you. I wanna run this place someday.'  
'Why here? What makes it so special?'  
'Well..' Elias faltered.  
'Yeah?'  
'I dropped out of school before I could take my A Levels. Nowhere else would employ me. And... it was like I had to. I'm not sure what it was, but as soon as I saw the ad I knew I had to apply. Turned out I was the only applicant. Strange, huh? You would've thought that any job opening in London would be swarmed with people. It was almost like-'  
'Like it was on purpose.' Michael breathed. So he wasn't the only one who had encountered a strange lack of applicants. His head felt fuzzy. It couldn't be a coincidence.   
His whirlwind of thoughts was suddenly shattered by an uproarious laugh from his companion.  
'HA! Gotcha!'  
Michael blinked. 'What?'  
'I'm just joking. There were tons of applicants when I came. But I saw you were the only one this time, and I thought it would be funny to see what you would do. Did you actually believe that shit, about you being called here on purpose?'  
'What? I- no!' Michael blushed, embarrassed. That was unfair of Elias, to do that simply to laugh at him. But he couldn't stay mad at him for long. The guy was strange, sure, and a bit stuck up, but he seemed nice enough once you got down to it and he seemed willing enough to talk to Michael, a novel experience for the quiet boy who had spent much of his high school experience utilising the phrase 'head down, shoulders up'. 'After all,' he continued, smiling again, 'this is all just bullshit anyway.'  
Elias gave him a wicked grin. 'The cherub curses!'  
Michael laughed and looked away. He could almost see himself liking this colleague of his.


	5. Chapter 5

It had been two weeks since Michael joined the institute and he was finally getting the hang of things. After realising a full suit wasn't quite appropriate, he had adopted his own uniform of sorts- jeans, button up and a sweater. Every day, he would come into the archives to a pile of statements on his desk, and he would go through them, making recordings of them. It didnt matter that they were almost certainly all fake, like Elias had said. It was still interesting, to read them. 

And the other staff were alright. Him and Elias had quickly become friends, mainly because they were so similar in age. Eric avoided the two of them, and while Emma wouldn't exactly seek them out she made a point to talk to them whenever she saw them. Elias didnt like her. He insisted that she had killed Fiona- the woman who Michael had replaced- but Gertrude had expressed that this was not a theory she entertained and Michael, who respected Gertrude a lot more than he respected Elias, therefore refused to believe it either.

It was Mary who confused the two boys the most. She was in her mid twenties, and openly friendly to them. But however nice she was, it always felt like an act. There was something... hard in her gaze, like she was testing them and they were failing. Michael was always glad when she left them to their own devices. 

They found her rifling through the bowels of the archival library on their lunchbreak, while looking for a place to talk without being interrupted by Emma's limp attempts at conversation or Gertrude's judgemental gaze. As soon as she heard them she span around, one hand behind her back. Michael was all for turning around and leaving her to whatever she was looking for, but Elias had stopped.  
'What's behind your back, Mary?'  
She shifted nervously. 'Oh, nothing to worry about. Stuff for Gertrude, if you must know. Now, if you'll excuse me-' She tried to walk past, but Elias snatched the sheet from her, grinning.   
'Stop the bullshit, we all know that this is where Gertude files the cases she thinks are true- let's see the light reading you picked out!' Mary tried to grab it back but Elias dodged and began to read.  
'Statement of Julian Woods, November the first, 1934. Written by subject.'   
He took a deep breath, about to launch into the statement itself, when he stopped. Michael leaned over his shoulder, curious to see what this Julian figure had written that had shocked his friend so much. His stomach dropped when he started to read.   
'meat is meat is meat is-' he broke off. 'that's...all it says. Over and over again. What?'  
The three of them stared at the paper in Elias's hand. Mary was the first to speak.  
'Look at the end. What's that about?'  
At the bottom of the page, the handwriting started to become more and more messy, until it was nothing more than a scrawl, in some points pressing hard enough to tear the paper.   
'Whoever wrote this wasn't...wasn't healthy.' Elias said quietly. Mary gave a small laugh.  
'Yeah, no shit. Maybe you should stop smoking for a bit and actually pay attention to something.'  
'I- what? Calm down! The fuck is your problem?' Elias tried to put the statement in his pocket but Mary grabbed it. The two of them stared each other in the eyes, both gripping the sheet of paper. Michael watched, frozen as the two stood still, the tension so thick you could almost cut it.   
'Give it here. I need it for Gertrude.'  
'Bullshit.'  
Michael had never seen either of them properly angry, and now he did, they were like two different people.   
'Elias. Give it to me or I'll-'  
There was a horrible ripping sound and suddenly the two were stumbling, each holding a chunk of paper.  
'....shit.' Mary examined the piece she had, but before she could say anything else, Elias had stormed off down the corridor. Michael gave her an apologetic smile and hurried off to find Elias, wishing he hadn't ended up in this situation.


End file.
